Sunday, 15 July 2012

Using a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX9V & review

My sister purchased this camera day before Christmas '11, as she needed a camera that recorded well (both audio and video), that had many different settings to produce realistic photos (none of that yellowish hue) and well... a camera better than my Canon IXUS 100 IS...

So let me tell you about the discovery of this beauty

Me and my sister (or my sister and I hahah) went to Jordan something... (some camera shop in Leeds) and tried out a few cameras, and we came home with a Panasonic Lumix - but not an SLR though. And... my brother - having lots of knowledge about cameras - said it wasn't the kind of camera she should be getting, as it wasn't so good.

So, the next day, we went to return the camera... and Leeds city centre was absolutely heaving with people looking for last minute christmas presents... I absolutely hate shopping during that time haha!!

But my sister was soooo determined to find a camera, that she went on Christmas Eve to find a camera!!

And we went into Jessops, had a look at all of the cameras and had a chat with the sales assistant dude.

He pointed out the Sony Cybershot DSC-HX9V.

It had everything she needed. It recorded in stereo, so her YouTube videos will be clear in audio, it recorded in HD, it had a soft skin mode (which I like to use too ha), and all of these technical settings you can adjust yourself, so you can capture close-to-real-life photos. So you can imagine, she reallllllyyy wanted this camera.

But the only camera they had that day, was the display model camera... which wasn't good! And the other camera they had which was close to this, was another Sony camera but it wasn't as good as this!

You know when you see something really good, yet you can't get it so you look at other items, but deep down you KNOW you really want that item and that's all you ever think about? Exactly how this felt!

Luckily, the salesman knew how bad my sister wanted this camera, and even called up Sony for us to see if they had the item in stock, and had it ready for us!!

And ta dah! We bought the camera, and my sister absolutely loves it! And here's a little review on it :)

Top of the camera: The HD thing on the left raises up, as this is the flash. The stereo microphone is at the top. The On/Off button. The capture button. And also the dial which you choose your camera settings. (More on this below!)

Close up. So you have like different modes here; the SCN allows you to choose from a large selection of modes, the green and yellow icons are pretty much the easiest options to use as they are all pre-set, the P is the opposite and allows you to adjust minor settings to help you capture specific types of photos (like getting rid of the yellow hues).

16x Optical zoom, meaning that even if you zoom in, you will still have a good quality image/video :)

The wide angle range I love, although it can be quite annoying as sometimes you will want to take a picture of a specific object, it will capture things around it too. Can be annoying, but can be good too.

GPS settings with these photos too... never really used it so I can't say anything about it!

The size of this camera is much bigger than my IXUS 100 IS; as you can see! It's a lot more bigger, thicker, and bulkier! This can be a problem if you're the kind of person who would prefer a camera that can easily be slipped into your pocket, and can be unnoticeable.

See, it's pretty small...

Comparing the two cameras. Well as you can see, the Sony Cybershot camera has a wider view; and also picks up colour a lot more than the Canon. The colours are much more vivid, which can be a positive or negative, depending on what kind of photos you would like.

See, the flash comes out like this...

Remember the SCN selection mode I mentioned before? Yeah it's basically this, and you can choose different options. Soft skin, adjust the ISO, Night time mode etc. Haven't really used the different settings other than soft skin mode.